Rove tried to shut out Hopi woman as US Attorney

BY MURIEL KANE
RAWSTORY
Published: August 14, 2009
Updated 15 hours ago

After the US Attorney for Arizona was dismissed by the Bush administration in December 2006 as part of a purge of multiple US Attorneys, the two Republican senators from that state quickly recommended that a Hopi attorney, Diane Humetewa, be nominated as his replacement.

Assistants to then-Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove, however, were less enthusiastic about Humetewa than Senators John McCain and Jon Kyl. Rove himself agreed that the appointment should be blocked, writing in a recently-revealed email, “Replace Blanquita.”

McCain and Kyl had first brought Humetewa’s name forward in January 2007. According to a story in the Gallup Independent, “Sen. McCain said in a news release that he is proud to recommend Humetewa to serve America in this noble role. … As a native Arizonan, Humetewa has a sound appreciation for the culture and legal issues unique to the region, he said. … ‘I am confident her remarkable work ethic and commitment to justice will make her an effective U.S. attorney,’ he said.”

Humetewa had served from 1993 to 1996 as a counsel to the chairman of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, a post then filled by Senator McCain. She then spent two years in the Department of Justice, specializing in Indian law and the prosecution of crimes in Indian country.

This background, however, failed to impress presidential assistant Scott Jennings, who emailed Rove on February 16 to complain, “Humetewa is a fonner McCain staffer, and so far his office has been unwilling to submit any other names. They are asking you to personally engage to move this process along. Humetewa is simply unacceptable.”

In a later email, Jennings added, “DOJ believes (and we concur) that Humetewa is not a viable candidate to be the U.S. Attorney for the following reasons.” Unfortunately, in the file released earlier this week by the House Judiciary Committee, the reasons themselves have been redacted.

Rove responded by saying simply “Replace Blanquita” — a term which, according to the Urban Dictionary, is used by Latinos to refer to a white woman. It is not clear why Rove would have applied it to the Native American Humetewa, but he apparently meant it as a racist epithet.
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